


Statement of Detective Inspector-

by Who_First



Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast), The Room Series (Fireproof Video Games)
Genre: Crossover, Gen, Statement Fic (The Magnus Archives), The Null, see if you can spot the fears
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-12
Updated: 2020-10-12
Packaged: 2021-03-08 05:00:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,543
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26979955
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Who_First/pseuds/Who_First
Summary: The Magnus Institute's Head Archivist has had to put up with some odd Statements. This one might be worse than the one with the mummies.
Kudos: 3





	Statement of Detective Inspector-

**Author's Note:**

> I had too. I love the game series and it felt like the perfect crossover. I regret nothing.

_“Archivist’s note. This Statement is written in the type of even hand that comes from years of writing in a way that allowed the most people to read. If one were to believe the Statement Giver, that is because the Statement Giver was a detective, presumably one aware of needing people to be capable of reading his handwriting. Which I can only appreciate. Though given the details of the Statement I’ve spotted upon a short glance through, I can hardly assume anything about this Statement Giver or his sanity. In fact judging by the ink splotches destroying names and words in a way that feels purposeful... well I suppose I might as well read the Statement. It can’t be worse than the one about mummies.”_

_“Statement begins”_

A building dedicated to the esoteric and weird? But none of your researchers are willing to talk to me in person? Fine. 

It doesn’t matter, does it. I am not sure your people would want to stay or even be able to if you demanded it. 

People are... difficult...these days. If I look at the wrong angle they vanish. Taken apart piece by piece until all that's left is a blue memory. Butterflies vanishing into nothing. Sometimes I think there’s notes left behind. However the nearest blink and they are back in place.Like they never vanished into that unnatural light. 

My heart rate speeds up anytime I see shades of pale blue creeping into the corner of my eye now. 

It’s amusing almost. Someone could be in the room watching me right now... but humans mean so little and the universe is so large. It would be so easy for them to vanish if there is no one to look for them. The world is so larger than I can comprehend. I’m left in a tiny lonely piece of it... one too far away to see or understand any other piece. And so I’d never know if someone was watching me right now. Even _Seeing_ the signs scratched across the wall. 

That is how its been since that night. 

It started with humans. We are too insignificant. We are lost. There is too much empty space filled with things... being and creations we can not ever hope to understand. And those beings are just past our understanding. Where the average chump can’t see. But they watch us. They are just waiting to take their chance at us. I don’t think they need to be so petty as eating our flesh. If they do want to survive on our flesh they just need to wait. Humans will come to them in the end.

It was my purpose to find missing people. Years of dealing with missing reports and violence all in a day's work. There were always one or two cases that I could never solve. Reports by witnesses I thought were better off dragged to Bedlam instead of being left on the street or with family. Now I wonder how many would send me to Bedlam.

I went beyond the veil that protects our sanity. I didn’t choose too, but it happened, would anyone choose that? Now I will never be free knowing of what lies just beyond what humans can understand. I returned. But I know that others did not, the people I looked for, for... They were lost before I could hope to help. And now, sometimes I wonder, if I actually returned. 

But the others didn’t send me to you. Smirke did. He must have seen something, in the way the other world appeared, or what I do not know. Smirke was interested in the

_“Archivist note. There is a stain here that covers just what Smirke, and one can’t imagine Robert Smirke given the time of the Statement, but the stains cover any pertinent details. More worrisome is that the stain here is more brown and dried than the obvious ink blots. They appear to me to look uncomfortably like dried blood now that I have more… experience. Statement continues.”_

What you’re doing will return upon you, Smirke. I’ve seen the phantoms surrounding you and your followers. Those that you fear will catch up. You are not invincible and your church will hold no succor when they come. 

And to you Magnus. Well I suppose I can only Watch. It’s far too late f-

_“Archivist notes. Here is another damaged section. This appears to have had ink spilled over it. A few words are recognizable but too few to be useful and I will continue to where the majority of text becomes readable again. Statement continues.”_

I won’t read handwritten notes now. Never again. Bit suspicious of the typed ones too. And I’ll never step foot into the... But you don’t care about what’s happening now. You just want the story. I can feel you watching me. Fine, Watcher. I’ll share what happened. There’s no one here to ask for more details. 

I was assigned a missing person case. Couple o’ odd ones that didn’t make much sense alone or together. Might as well give all the odd ones to one detective. Then there’s only one person to sack or fire if some toff gets angry. You don’t need the details . I knew even then that this would end up with any witness sent onto Bedlam. I knew some of the kinder doctors by name now.

It was wet. Raining that night. I remember because I think it was the last true rain I ever saw. 

I was alone as far as I knew, working late trying to get a few ideas for my next step. Something was different though, felt watched, hunted, like something was coming I couldn’t handle. I found a note about some weird evidence in the safe, didn’t recognize the handwriting then....think I will now. 

Only when I tried to open the safe, these tendrils, thick, pulsing, and darker than night appeared to wrap around the thick metal. Staining every inch of the thick metal they touched, corrupting it. Not sure why I kept going, curiosity, the need to know, it didn’t take me long to open the safe a different way. Police are as good as any safecracker by my account. 

That was when things became truly odd. I found the first note. One I knew didn’t come from anyone in that room, along with a box that dropped through the air like a person had been standing above my desk, though I was alone. Inside were heavy goggles with dark and foggy glass lenses. A puzzle box appeared after I glanced at a letter. And that’s when it all went wrong. 

I should have left to find someone. Why didn’t I? 

_“Archivist’s notes. Here there is a series of blotted out words like the writer had trouble finding the right description. Statement continues.”_

I still don’t know. You get backup or you get dead. No two ways about it. Thinking back I still don’t know why I didn’t find help. 

There was another letter only through the goggles it was a hole in the world, one with a hovering rune sucking light inside. It pulled me in with it. When I blinked I was somewhere, nowhere, darkness around me stretching forever apart from a tiny self lit altar and enough light to see the sand in front of it. 

Another blink and I was in the basement of the British museum. The big one with the mummies. An archaeologist or something professor went missing recently, I knew since I had his image in my office. 

I found the first note quickly and was even quicker to realize it was in the hand of my missing man. Only the first letter left another bit of glass for the heavy eyepieces. Picking it up... the metal and glass felt hot, burning my fingers without any sign of being heated. I could smell ancient dust and the metal felt pitted and old. More letters appeared as worked puzzles, trying to recreate what the missing professor would have done, and each letter was in the professors’ hand. And they all showed fragments of him working before he vanished. 

I opened the mummy crate. Don’t remember what the professionals call it. But looking back... it felt too easy. Like some...something was helping guide my hands to what they needed to do. The letters mentioned how hard it was for the missing man. Why, _how_ , could I solve it so quickly? Glad I solved it second though. I saw the memory of the professor getting trapped, sacrificed, the artifact I was about to pick up had pulled the professor inside it. The blue dust memory disappeared so quickly. 

I hope he didn’t have the chance to understand what happened. I witnessed it and I cannot forget. I… I hope he’s dead. It is a kinder fate than what happened to me .

The next place I appeared was a church. I didn’t recognize it then and I have not stepped foot in any church since in case I find it. 

Life repeated. There were more letters and puzzles l, all while a shade of a man tried to work out the location of some relic. I did not have the time to examine it... but I think I found that priest. The way the artifact in the catacombs was held reminded me of fingers. And what I saw in the memory... if those fingers didn’t belong to the priest, well he did not find a better ending than the Egyptologist. 

After that was a witches home. I don’t need to go into detail, it was much the same, only she knew. She knew the old man was sacrificing her and she laid a trap for him.

Somehow, and I _found_ her, she knew I would be transported to her home long before it happened. I found her record after, I couldn’t rest until I did, and I found she’s been missing for fifteen years. The archaeologist has been missing for one month. I don’t know how long the priest has been missing, I haven’t found a record of him yet. I’m do not know what could be worse. If I’ll live long enough to see his name in a missing person case in the future or if I die without knowing. 

The three of

I.

Hah. I can hear you. See you eyes . Feel your impatience, Watcher. You feel like the old man. Wanting the rewards but not wanting to get your hands dirty. Just spinning your web and waiting to play people as puppets. Webs and Watching are similar eh .

The old man I saw at the end. The Craftsman. I felt the same feeling from you that I had when I was near his echoes. He never bothered to meet me physically like the others like you Magnus but I saw the echo, followed it to where he ended. The Witch showed me what to do and helped me complete her revenge.

This is my last warning. Do not meddle. Your Watcher may yet protect you Magnus, but only as long as you are useful. The Null will break you down and use you for parts. There will be no coming back. Not in a way you can use.

 ** _Statement Ends_ **.

“Archivist’s notes. This is another stunning example of the previous archivists ability to organize. Sometimes I feel like Gertrude Robinson did everything in her power to avoid the Archives or day to day management of such a large collection for it to have gotten to this point. 

In an ironic turn of events, considering the Statement giver’s comments on written notes, this Statement was hand written. Ink smudges stained certain parts of the paper while others were nearly scratched out, as I noted during the recording. I am unable to make out the Statement giver’s name. 

I doubt it is a loss however, as Statements of being trapped outside of the world and away from people seems a bit... Nevertheless, something interesting did occur to me. Though the dates are hard to read, I believe this statement came from around the year 1908. Interesting because most of the Statements I can find during the early 1800’s to 1870 were written as letters to the founder of the Magnus Archives... Jonah Magnus. 

Which brings up the main concern I have with this Statement. The writer possibly mentions both Robert Smirke and Jonah Magnus by name though in both cases it was simply by last name and I hesitate to...ponder further. Given how the Statement Giver acts as though he’s spoken with both men recently I become even more irritated with this waste of time. After all if this Statement was recorded in 1908, Smirke would have been dead for some 41 years. Jonah Magnus nearly the same amount. 

In the end though, there is little reason to put any effort into follow up for this Statement. The people involved will all be long dead and any supposed evidence lost. Presumably there was an issue with the noted dates. On whose end I do not know nor do I care to waste my time looking into it. Any person involved with the Statement will have died long before I was born at a time when police detectives were less precise than they are now. I doubt there is any evidence of the case the Statement Giver mentions even without the handicap of no mentioned names.

One last note of worth. When I see the Statement from the corner of my eye it seems to glow. The only way I could describe it is as an oil slick covers the paper reflecting all sorts of color and almost images. Perhaps the tea has not been as safe to drink as I would have hoped. 

**_Click._ **

Supplemental. Shortly after I put aside this Statement, Elias appeared. He proceeded to talk to me about the weather, given the fact English weather rarely changes and Elias has never bothered to make such small chat before I found it odd. He also took the time to ask if I had been to any interesting events recently. I pointed out I have been far too busy with the mess of an archive he had given me with only two helpful assistants and one who can usually brew a _passable_ tea. And also the...worm incident as well as what has else has been happening recently.

I feel I may have let Elias see more of my current feelings then I meant too. I always feel closely watched in his presence and I hate to say it unnerves me. 

Elias did take the time to internalize the information I passed on before asking about the Statement I had just recorded. After giving him the pertinent details, and repeating my analysis of Gertrude Robinson’s character as an archivist, Elias merely smiled and thanked me for the hard work. Clearly he understands how poor a choice his last archivist had been. 

Still I found it an odd occurrence. Also, I now can’t find that statement. Perhaps Martin was attempting to help and lost more paperwork. One of these days I really will fire that man.

**_Click._ **


End file.
